Deirdre19

It is on Viki. From what I heard, the subs there are better than the original ones provided by Mango (machine translation). I watched it with the original subs, the translated proper names take some getting used to, but otherwise it was ok.

It does not help either that the FL keeps virtually the same facial expression (wide-eyed stare) no matter what is happening.

Because it never makes any sense. Most people would have trouble going 200 years into the past (or in the case of millennials, to a time before the smartphone) yet we are expected to believe that a person can go to ancient times and perfectly fit in and speak an ancient language within half-a-day, or even become a superior being due to their "modern knowledge" (which in most cases is non-existent if people can no longer google stuff). It's is just total BS.

Yeah, same here, I couldn't finish that one either, despite Jeremy.
Here she's looks exactly the same and "acts" exactly the same. I watched two episodes and was expecting her to call for "Shifu" at any moment 😂😂😂 I guess I'm still traumatised from the one that shall not be named.

Endings were rushed before that as well. It's not the length of the drama that will influence this, but the ability of the director/editor/writer to handle the pace properly. They usually waste a lot of time in the beginning and then rush it in the end, as if they had no coordination at all.
Classic example is LLTG, they had 56 episodes (split in two parts) and it was draggy as hell in the beginning, but the ending was still a rush-job.

ML is ok, FL has two settings, wide-eyed vacuous stare or whiny pouting. That woman cannot act if her life depended on it.

A big part of this is probably due to the acting. That permanent wide-eyed stare or whiny pouting seem to the the only two expressions that her face can manage. It get's really boring, really fast.

Not even Douban knows...

Well, that's a problem with the writing, not with the actors. I generally hate FLs behaving like little girls, with all the pouting and immaturity, no matter who the actress is.
There seems to be a trend to keep dumbing down the plots so that in the end nothing is left but a pile of clichés.
It is really disappointing, because I would like to see an engaging historical drama with some grown up actors who can actually act.

Just watched the trailer for this... Why oh why did they have to give the FL the voice of a 5-year-old??? It sounds so ridiculous and annoying! Not sure if I will be able to endure this for 40 episodes...

C'mon give us some grown-up MLs! No everyone likes to look a prepubescent boys (who mostly cannot act at all).

It's not a new trend... even Eternal Love AKA 3L3WTMOPB had an underwater kiss in 2017.
It belongs to the classic set of romance tropes in C-drama, together with the fireflies, a walk through the Lantern Festival, flower petals that need picking out of FL's hair, etc. etc.

By now, it would have been faster to learn some basic Chinese...

The writing is bad, the CGI is beyond ridiculous and pointless side-characters get too much screentime.
BUT, the acting by the leads is really good and there are some great moments that make this drama worth watching despite everything else.
There are also a lot of people who simply hate either the drama or one of the leads. They had already downrated all the episodes before half of them were aired, so don't be too bothered by the low rating.

I complained a lot about HY coming across as bland, but it was always quite clear to me (and I hope it also showed in my posts) that the fault for him being bland was with the writing, not with the acting. GJ did what he could with the little material he was given in these early episodes.
When the script is bad and the direction is bad, there's not much room left for the actors to save the drama.

She is DZY's aunt. She was close the current emperor's father (and the empress dowager is insanely jealous of her) but promised him never to return to the capital. Hence she wasn't present when the rest of her family was killed. In the beginning of the drama people don't know whether she is still alive because nobody has seen her in a while.

Now they're up.

Those aren't the new ones... I still cannot upload anything. It seems to be a general problem with MDL at the moment.
All their clothes look so nice. I'm in love with the costume department 😍

It's another way of saying "transmigrated into a novel".
It seems that currently it has become impossible to find a short drama without this BS trope...

Yeah, fingers crossed it won't be another TJOCZ. Maybe with a different director there will be less pouting, more acting 😂😂😂